All posts tagged Chris Jacobs

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwellruling, some have argued that a more bipartisan approach to health policy may emerge. But fundamental philosophical disagreements between liberals and conservatives suggest that rapprochement will be difficult.

Philosophical disagreements played into in the debate over pre-Obamacare health coverage. Many conservatives argued that people should be allowed to keep their plans (as the president originally promised). Most also want to liberalize the ACA’s definition of “insurance.” That involves widening the age rating bands—older people will pay a little more, so younger people can buy cheaper policies—and eliminating some benefit requirements so that, to use a frequently cited example, single men don’t have to purchase pregnancy coverage and retired couples don’t have to buy plans that cover well-baby visits. Read More »

The Congressional Budget Office released its annual update last week regarding the long-term budget outlook. In that document, one chart in particular demonstrated the financial difficulties caused by an entitlement system that has promised Americans more in benefits than it can deliver.

Figure 2-5, on Page 47 of the CBO report, analyzes the average lifetime Medicare benefits and taxes for cohorts of the population based on their decades of birth. Read More »

An MIT study shows “sound science” questioning the efficiency and utility of Medicaid coverage for beneficiaries. Will the Obama administration react to this scientific evidence, or will its own ideology prevent the consideration of more innovative, and potentially more effective, policies? Read More »

In a recent interview with the Des Moines Register, Hillary Clinton outlined several elements of Obamacare that she said she would seek to change as president. Her proposals illustrate how the fiscal impact of the law could increase significantly from what was expected when the legislation passed in March 2010.

Among the things Mrs. Clinton cited was “how to fix the family glitch.” In short, if an individual qualifies for “affordable” health insurance through an employer, that person’s family will not qualify for federal insurance subsidies–even if the employer does not offer family coverage or if family coverage is unaffordable for the household.

Supporters of the health-care law may call this a “glitch,” but it is far from an unintended consequence. Read More »

Last week, the White House released a report outlining the economic benefits to states of expanding Medicaid. The report continues a line of argument the Obama administration has used in encouraging states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the president’s health-care law. The administration faces several obstacles in attempting to sell this argument to reluctant states. Read More »

The Congressional Budget Office has conducted two analyses related to Obamacare that showed that the health law would exacerbate a “poverty trap” for families of modest means—discouraging work and reducing the size of the labor force. The first analysis, released in August 2010, found that the law would reduce the U.S. work force by about half of one percentage point–the equivalent of approximately 800,000 workers by 2021. The second, released in February 2014, roughly tripled that estimate to 1.5% to 2% of the labor force, or about 2.3 million workers in 2021. Read More »

Even as federal regulators take steps to constrain administrative spending by private health insurers, government overhead on health coverage has soared.

In a Health Affairs blogpost published Wednesday, David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhander use actuarial estimates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to project that between 2014 and 2022, national spending on private insurance overhead and government administration will rise by $273.6 billion related to the health-care overhaul. Read More »

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on the legality of insurance subsidies in 37 states that use the federal HealthCare.gov site. Some states have discussed creating their own exchanges in the wake of the court’s decision, but those may not be fiscally sustainable.

As spring turns to summer, the House and Senate will work on the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. The backdrop to this work? The president who signed the Budget Control Act into law four years ago wants to exceed the spending levels the legislation prescribed.

In a recent blog post, Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan made clear that the administration opposes the spending levels. Mr. Donovan wrote that “sequestration was never intended to take effect: rather, it was supposed to threaten such drastic cuts to both defense and non-defense funding that policymakers would be motivated to come to the table and reduce the deficit through smart, balanced reforms.” Read More »

The issue of mammogram coverage is about to return to the Washington agenda.

A draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force last month echoes a similar recommendation made in the fall of 2009. Namely, the task force recommends mammogram screening every two years for women ages 50 to 74 but does not recommend universal screening before age 50: “The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account.” Read More »

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